Back to blogging

Okay, school's started, and I'm back. I do need to get stuff done, though, so this won't be hugely long.

First of all, to everyone who bugged me to post over the holidays: it's okay, I was going to get around to it. I really was. See? I have already. So for future reference, I haven't forgotten, I'm on a break. That's why I don't post on weekends and why you'll likely not see much of me over spring break. A little bit of bugging is okay, though, it makes me feel wanted. Though really, I'll be here whether anyone wants me or not, so why that matters I don't know.

That was sort of long-winded. Anyway, second thing: a more in-depth review of Eragon.

First scene: Extremely reminiscent of Lord of the Rings. Voice of a character in the background detailing the fall of the dragon riders and the rise of Galbatorix, bla bla bla. At this point we meet Arya, who's riding through the forest in the dark dressed in what can be accurately described as 'not much' and being chased by the creepiest character in the movie, Durza. Just for background - he's a Shade, and as such is a) not human or elven or even dwarven (never a good sign) and b) pretty powerfully magical, but in a bad way. But back to the story. In a nutshell, Arya is carrying one of the last three dragon eggs in Alagaesia and Durza wants it because he's Galbatorix's servant (figures) and Galbatorix wants it, because it was stolen from him in the first place. A dragon egg won't hatch unless the dragon inside feels the presence of the person destined to be its rider, so Arya and the Varden (resistance against Galbatorix's empire) are seacrhing for that person. Wow, we're still on the first scene, aren't we? Better hurry it along. In a smaller nutshell, Durza eventually turns all the forest around Arya to flaming tinder and kidnaps her, but not before she sends the dragon egg somewhere else with magic. Understandably, Durza's not very happy about this. Durza:


At this point it might be valuable to interject with my thoughts about Arya, seeing as she is one of the main characters. Book Arya had black hair and green eyes, and dressed in black leather. She was appropriately disdainful towards pretty much everybody, being an elf princess, and did NOT flirt with anyone *cough* Eragon *cough*. Movie Arya, on the other hand, has red/gold/brown/can't-decide-what-it-is-but-could-safely-be-called-strawberry-blonde hair, blue eyes, and dresses (like I said) in 'not much' - which can be described as an odd sort of one-strap thing that looks like it was melted onto her and wouldn't stop any sort of weapon in a million years for a top, and a skirt for a bottom that likewise wouldn't stop a weapon in a million years. This seems rather impractical for a dragon-egg courier, wouldn't you agree? Seeing as she's gotten saddled with pretty much the most dangerous job the Varden could give her, wouldn't you think more practical clothing and at the VERY least some token chain mail would be in order? But this is a movie, and somehow they don't think like that. This is a picture, so you can see what I'm talking about:

See, you might think you could safely call her blonde, but it changes throughout the entire movie. But despite of all this unfaithfulness to the book, I still liked her. I'm easy to please.

Moving on, we now meet Eragon, his uncle Garrow, and his cousin Roran (who is SUPPOSED to have a fiance-to-be named Katrina, who we all expected to be in the movie and even got her own promotional stills, but inexplicably never made it to the theater) and most importantly, Eragon's dragon Saphira. Who hatches from the egg that Eragon finds while he's hunting - the same egg Arya was carrying. At this point she's about the size of a bread-box and has huge eyes that cover about half of her head, but is still pretty cute. Eragon attempts to feed her and she spills milk all over the place, and decides that rats are more to her taste. Over the next little while Roran leaves, because the Empire (the Empire and Galbatorix are evil, in case I failed to specify) is forcing young men to enlist in the army and he doesn't want to. Eragon's pretty disappointed about this, but Saphira makes up for it. At this point we also meet Brom, a mysterious story-teller who's obviously opposed to the Empire and likes to walk around loudly proclaiming that the dragon riders will return, and thereby getting his chickens stolen by soldiers. Eragon has already realized that he has a dragon and tries to find out more from Brom, who is reluctant to share. Over the next bit MORE evil creatures, the Ra'zac in this case, try to find Eragon and his egg by invading his village at night, torturing his uncle, and generally causing mayhem. Eragon's not there to save him because Saphira (somehow magically grown in about ten seconds to be slightly larger than an elephant) gets upset and carries him off. Eragon arrives back home, finds his uncle dead, and is quite mad and upset, but Brom finds him and tosses him onto a horse while setting his house on fire, because they need to get away quickly. Nothing of great importance happens in the next while - Eragon is mad at Saphira but reconciles himself to her and accepts that he's a dragon rider, starts learning important dragon-rider stuff, and starts becoming less arrogant, which is always a good thing.

Pause here to evaluate Eragon, Brom, Saphira and the Ra'zac.

Eragon - slightly too old, he's only sixteen in the book, but pretty faithful to the story. Blond hair, blue eyes, typical Marty-Sam-ish hero. To anyone who's wondering what on earth a Marty-Sam is, it's a fiction term used to describe extremely stereotypical characters. The female version is Mary-Sue. Basically what it means is that your character is practically perfect in every way, usually Elven, possesser of extreme powers, stunningly beautiful/handsome. Usually has fiery red hair, golden hair, or midnight black hair. Also tends to have either purple, emerald green or otherwise unnaturally colored eyes. Arya can be accurately described as a Mary-Sue, and Eragon's definetely on his way to Marty-Sam-hood. By the second book he's so Marty-Sam you have to shield your eyes - he's even switched races and gone Elven rather than human. Tsk tsk. Eragon:


Brom - perfect. No criticism to make, which is saying quite a bit, and he brings Eragon down a notch or two, because he's insufferably arrogant at the beginning of the story. Brom:


Saphira - also perfect, and brings Eragon down ANOTHER notch or two, which makes him quite a respectable character despite his Marty-Sam-ish tendencies. The special effects used to create Saphira were breathtaking, but I can't find a picture.

Ra'zac - there's only one word to describe these. Bizarre. They look like someone turned over a rotten log, scooped up as many maggots as they could carry, and sculpted something vaguely humanoid with them; but it wouldn't stay together properly so they crossed it with a mummy, gave it burning red eyes and superhuman strength, and called it a Ra'zac. Not extremely pleasant. You don't want to see a picture of these, even though I could probably find one.

I don't remember the movie REALLY well, but it seems to me that nothing really important happens over the next while. We do, however, see several scenes with a helpless Arya being tortured for information by Durza, which somehow she seems to know. Weird. Maybe it's an elf thing, to know things you haven't seen and nobody's told you. Eventually Durza gets so annoyed by her lack of cooperation that he sends Eragon a dream in which the forest is all filled with misty green light, Arya prances in and tells Eragon soulfully that he's the only one who can save her, and prances out again. Eragon is understandably a little confused by this, as he's never seen Arya before, but he's determined to rescue her, which is exactly what Durza wants and therefore the last thing Brom wants. So they have a bit of a fight and Eragon goes off to rescue Arya. At this point you begin to wonder if the fact that he's an adolescent male and she's beautiful has anything to do with his determination. He makes it into the prison where she's being held and has an epic battle with Durza in which he's ALMOST killed, but Brom comes in at the last moment and gets fatally wounded by throwing himself in front of a weapon aimed at Eragon. They escape on Saphira, and oddly enough Arya can't do anything for the wounded Brom except look sad, even though she's supposed to be endowed with amazing powers. Anyway, he dies.

Saphira, Eragon and Arya are pretty dejected about this, but pretty soon it's only Eragon and Saphira that are dejected because some poison that Durza used on Arya suddenly takes effect and the falls to the ground with a despairing cry, that just happens to be Eragon's name. I wasn't very happy about this, because in the book she's far less damsel-in-distress-like. Anyway, they decide they have to find the Varden (which Eragon and Brom had been searching for before) because they're the only ones who can heal Arya, and on the way they meet Murtagh. Murtagh is a very important character in the book, but in the movie they somehow downgrade him to a mysterious figure who Saphira drops out of the sky to land on his head because he'd been following them. Inexplicably, he laughs at this. "Oh haha, I just LOVE being dropped on my head!"

Murtagh - you don't think of him quite this way at the beginning, but he also is regrettably Marty-Sam-ish. VERY cool, though, even with the four-and-a-half seconds of screen time he gets. WAY not enough Murtagh in this movie.


They find the Varden, the Varden heal Arya and lock up Murtagh because he's the son of Morzan, one of the thirteen Forsworn who served Galbatorix. How they know this, we're not sure. But an epic battle is approaching and we meet Ajihad and his daughter Nasuada, who are prominent among the Varden. Ajihad is great, but Nasuada walks in on shirtless Eragon and practically flutters her eyelashes at him, which made me mad because in the book she's far better.

The epic battle ensues and just before it begins Arya...um...zips up the back of Eragon's armor for him because he can't reach (well, it probably wasn't a zipper, but she does something, and that's for sure) and shows him Saphira's armor. Strangely enough, when Saphira emerges she's wearing armor but it's entirely different armor. What, did they have a show set and a usable set? Anyway, in the epic battle Eragon kills Durza and fails to acquire a scar that's very important in the second book, but Saphira is wounded and Eragon blacks out and wakes up to see Murtagh (this is where the other two of the poor guy's four lines are delivered) looking at him. He (Eragon) asks, "Saphira?" and Murtagh, who seems to enjoy freaking him out, says "Some friends can't be replaced." Eragon looks alarmed and then Saphira lands beside Eragon and Murtagh adds, "Luckily some don't have to be."

Now that we've reached the end, Eragon flies off on Saphira to say goodbye to Arya, who is NOT aloof and elf-like but smiles at him, tells him he's a legend and that "tomorrow may see us together again." SIGH. The movie ends with an ominous shot of Galbatorix's huge black dragon, Shruikan, and then fades to Avril Lavigne singing "Keep Holding On." I like that song, even if it is Avril Lavigne + fantasy movie, and if she'd sung at the end of LotR I would have thrown a hissy fit.

Even though this review may have seemed to contradict it - I liked this movie. Not up to the standard of LotR by a very, VERY long shot, and PotC is quite a bit better as well, but respectably good. I did have a lot of fun poking fun at it, though.

~Sil